Will Kanye Come Through

10.1.20

Kanye West, Big Sean

At this point in time, pretty much everyone has gotten word of Kanye West and his outrageous Twitter rants. Whether you hate them, love them, or just find them comical, it is one of those things where you just cannot look away. You want to hear what crazy thing he has to say next. The bigger question rather than what will he say is next, is what does he truly believe, and what will he actually follow through with. Is he really trying to run for President? Is he really trying to give his artist’s their masters back?

Artists in music have spoke out time and time again that if you want to be successful while remaining true to who you are, you need to own your own masters. Owning your own masters means that your work, and your songs are yours to do with what you wish. This gives artists the creative freedom to change up the sound, and how it is being released. Many times, probably most mites, when artists are signed to major labels, they do not own the masters to their own music. These types of relationships are why you hear artists saying their label will not let them drop their album, or why they may disagree on how a certain song sounded.

In one of Kanye’s latest Twitter rants, he speaks on becoming an independent artist, and the importance of artists having their own masters. At first, he mentioned that he would not drop any more music until he is released from his label. He wants to do things his way, and have the right and all the funding that comes with it. This would mean that Donda is on hold until further notice, and that Eminem song produced by Dr. Dre he Tweeted about as well. Hopefully they can figure this out soon, I just need to hear it. Frankly, I am surprised they are still holding on so tightly. This has been quite the downward spiral. Artists will be artists, we could say.

Aside from becoming completely independent, Kanye West speaks about the members of his label, GOOD Music. Ye founded the label in 2004 and the music, the collaborations, it was good vibes all around. It appears that in the artists contracts, Kanye owns a fifty percent share of all of their masters. In a most recent tweet, Ye claims that he will give back the fifty percent share to all of his GOOD Music artist.

Of course, this would be the correct thing to do when Ye has been tweeting so much about how he believes artists should own the rights to their masters. If the man is true to his word, he would need to follow through. As I am sure anyone would, after seeing this tweet and having worked with this man for some many years, Big Sean replies, extremely excited.

Thank you!!! This would help so much

How can you not love this man? His lyrical ability is through the roof, but he has taken us through the emotional rollercoaster of his life, which we can all relate to in so many ways. Dealing with anxiety and depression, not having the motivation to work, the public breakups, to realizing you are better than all of this, taking time to focus on your self, build yourself back up to the King/Queen that you are, and come back ten times stronger. This is what Big Sean’s career has been like, and to see how humble, hopeful and excited he still is about the music, continues to show how much of a real person he is.

Big Sean has been a part of GOOD Music since 2007. At first, the two were putting out songs that you probably blasted in your car, screamed the lyrics to, played at your college dorm parties and more. With Kanye being from Chicago and Sean being right across the pond in Detroit, it does feel like the two originally belonged together. Though, Sean has grown into an incredible artist and role model on his own. Out of everyone that remains on the label today, you could say Big Sean is the biggest, in which he no longer needs to report to someone constantly. Not to mention, Big Sean has hosted numerous classes and done the work to give children the tools to creating their own music. Sean is teaching the youth how to do this on his own, and it is definitely time his label lets him do the same. Apparently, however, Kanye West is having a tough time letting go.

On yesterday’s episode of the Breakfast Club’s Rumor Has It segment, Charlamagne The God alludes to the notion that Kanye West owes Big Sean three million dollars, and denied the label of giving Sean back his masters. His words on the matter are roughly as followed:

"The restrain that Big Sean shows Kanye West is remarkable.  That really shows me he's a healed individual.  I hope one day Big Sean tells his story. Kanye West owes Big Sean a whole lot of money.  He got Big Sean in a very terrible contract.  To be out here screaming about giving folks their masters back ... Kanye West owes Big Sean three million dollars.  Kanye West gets half of Big Sean's profits and half of Sean's royalties and Kanye wouldn't agree to Big Sean getting his masters back from Def Jam," CTG explained.  "Big Sean had negotiated something with Def Jam/Universal to get his masters back GOOD Music had to sign off but Kanye wouldn't."

Charlamagne is right in saying how humble Sean is. On Sean’s latest project, Detroit 2, he put out a song Friday Night Cypher which includes a large group of artists from Detroit. A handful of them do not even like each other, but he did this in attempts to bring everyone back together. It does not seem like Sean would be the type to throw Kanye and his antics under the bus, but maybe one day when he is a long since free artist, we will hear his story.

These statements are all so new, I would not be surprised if this was something that had happened in the past, and Big Sean and Kanye get a second chance to look at the terms, and have Ye hand over the rights to his masters. It would only make sense for Ye to do right by Sean in this sense where he has been claiming the importance on this subject to the public over and over.

Whether or not Kanye plans to remain true to his word, it does look like Big Sean has some new beginnings in mind. Prior to the Detroit 2 album release, Big Sean responded to a Tweet asking if he was still signed to GOOD Music. His response was yes, but that he was starting his own label after the album. It does sound like Big Sean may have just finished up his contract with Kanye, and is ready to move on and put in the work on his own.

I definitely see Big Sean adding a ton of artists that are super up-and-coming in the midwest areas. I see potential for a lot of female talents, as well. I think Sean is a great teacher, so it will be interesting to see how success finds him in this new stage.